Before you produce a marketing piece you may want to consider the following steps to save time and money. For over 25 years I have been helping solopreneurs and small businesses with brochures, postcards and campaigns. We guide our clients through these steps to produce stunning designs with compelling content in a timely fashion within their budgets. Here’s how we do it:
Produce a Marketing Piece by Starting at the End!
Ask yourself, “What is the final format that I need?” Is it printed piece, a slide show, postcard, e-mail blast, etc.? Consider the time frame for each phase of the job. How much time will be needed to:
- Email/mail final piece to get to recipients
- Print the piece
- Prepare the artwork/files
- Write the content
What You Need to Know to Produce a Marketing Piece for Printing
- Description of the job
- The final size of piece (open and closed) i.e. when fully opened up, a pamphlet may be printed on an 8 1/2” x 11” paper but folded to 8 1/2” x 5 1/2” or in thirds.
- For ads specify W (width) dimensions first then H (height) dimensions i.e.: 8.5″ (W) x 5.5″ (H)
- Is the piece printed on one side (front only) or 2 sides (front and back)?
- Will the layout be landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical)?
- How many pages or folds?
- How many colors? (specify for each side)
- Will it be printed with spot colors? If so, the PMS color number(s) will need to be specified.
- Will it have a combination of black and PMS color(s) (specify black + PMS color number(s)
- Will it be in full color? (This is also known as 4-color process/CMYK )
- Are there bleeds? (Does the color extend to the edge of the page?)
- What is the paper stock? (Consider the paper type, weight, special coating, embossing, special instructions, etc.)
- Have you chosen a printer or do you need us to get printing prices for you?
- If you’ve chosen a printer, what is your contact’s name, phone number and email?
- Has your printer specified a file format? (PDF, EPS, JPG, etc.)
- How does your printer prefer to receive files? Electronically? What is their FTP website address, login and password?
What You Need Share With Your Designer To Produce a Marketing Piece:
- Written content, indicating on which side or panel the text should be placed.
- Will you be providing high resolution photos? Or will the designer need to use stock images?
- Is this a new piece (never been created before) or an update on another piece? Did we produce the original piece?
- If this is an update on a piece we did not create, we will need the native computer files (i.e.: Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop)
Here are Some Typical Time Frames:
